“Relax, Jamie love. And do put out that nasty cheroot.” With hardly a breath, Peony turned to face Bliss, giving her a charitable smile. “Why, Bliss,” she said, “you look wonderful in that shade of blue!”

It did seem that Mrs. Ryan was sincere, but Bliss was on her guard all the same. The question that puzzled her most was whether Jamie was keeping Mrs. Ryan or Mrs. Ryan was keeping him. It was not the sort of dilemma she’d ever expected to face.

She frowned, perplexed. “Thank you,” she answered belatedly.

“Well,” Peony chimed, consulting a watch pinned to her bodice. The face was cleverly hidden behind a cameo. “If we’re going to be at the opera by curtain time, we’d best eat.”

Bliss was all for that. It had been a long time since lunch.

Tea was served in a formal dining room, and just getting there was an ordeal of the soul. Since there were two women and only one man, Jamie had to choose whom to escort to her chair first, and he chose Peony.

Bliss didn’t wait to see if he’d come back for her; she walked in and seated herself.

Jamie’s eyes were dancing as he drew back the chair beside hers, which conveniently put him between herself and Peony, and sat down. “In a rush, Duchess?” he teased, under his breath.

“I’m fair starving,” Bliss replied. Unfortunately, the words carried and elicited an indulgent smile from Mrs. Ryan.

The meal itself offered other agonies. Small roasted fowls were served by the giggling Molly—a whole one for each person at the table—and Bliss didn’t know the proper way to eat them. At home, she would simply have torn the food apart with her fingers, but here, in a rich woman’s house . . .

She watched Peony for a clue, not trusting Jamie’s manners to be any better than her own. Finally, after dallying over her wine and discussing the prices of wool and gold with Jamie, Mrs. Ryan took up her knife and fork and began neatly dissecting her fowl.

Ravenous, Bliss nevertheless contented herself with tiny bites removed with surgical delicacy. Of course, long before she’d satisfied her appetite, Jamie and Peony had pushed away their plates. As if on cue, Molly swept in and took away everyone’s dishes—Bliss having her fork halfway between her plate and her mouth—and returned with skimpy little bowls of tired-looking fruit.

Bliss’s mood, never improved by hunger, went from bad to worse. If Jamie and Peony were going to talk about some stupid gold mine in Australia forever, they might at least make a halfhearted effort to include her in the discussion.

“I’ve never been to an opera,” she announced bravely, wanting to remind them that she was present.

It was Peony who looked chagrined, oddly enough. Jamie only sighed and said, “You ’aven’t missed much, Duchess,” then went back to talking about sluicing ore and buying low and selling high.

“Any idiot knows that you buy low and sell high,” Bliss put in, leaving that strange process called sluicing for greater minds than hers.